Justinian Lane

Attorney Brian Wilson Calls out the AMA

I’ve often complained about tort “reformers” with a “do as I say, not as I sue” philosophy; those who file multimillion dollar lawsuits of their own, but complain when others do. Attorney Brian Wilson notes that you can now add the American Medical Association to that list of hypocrites:

Sometimes seemingly unrelated events line up or intersect with one another and serve to prove a larger point. Pharmacists refer to this as a "synergistic effect," like when 2 medications combine to become more potent than if taken individually. The first noteworthy "event" is an American Medical Association (AMA) report of a $350 million class action settlement on behalf of doctors who were shortchanged in reimbursements due to faulty and one sided health insurer reimbursement databases.

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Hmmm. Physicians get to sue the pants off of the insurance industry to recover their losses, but when you lose your leg or your mother, now there must be "limits" and "caps" and this is supposedly all good for patient access and care, according to the AMA.

Here’s an idea: How about imposing damage caps on the beneficiaries of damage caps? For example, in Nevada there’s a $350,000 cap on medical malpractice suits. So why not prohibit doctors from receiving more than $350,000 in suits they file? Check out the rest of Brian’s post – I left some of the best parts out.

My understanding of the suit is that at best the doctors involved will receive at most $2500. Where did you get the idea that it was over $350,000? The vast majority of the actual money that is to be transferred goes to hospitals.